A computer network is a group of computers that are connected to each other for the purpose of communication. Any computer network is classified on the basis of a wide variety of characteristics. Networks are often classified as Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), Personal Area Network (PAN), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Campus Area Network (CAN), Storage Area Network (SAN), etc. depending on their scale, scope and purpose. Usage, trust levels and access rights often differ between these types of network; for example, LANs tend to be designed for internal use by an organization's internal systems and employees in individual physical locations (such as a building), while WANs may connect physically separate parts of an organization to each other and may include connections to third parties.
Storage virtualization refers to the process of separating (through abstraction) logical storage from physical storage. The term is used to describe this separation at any layer in the storage software and hardware stack. Virtualization of storage, for example, helps achieve location independence by abstracting the physical location of the data. The virtualization system presents to the user a logical space for data storage and itself handles the process of mapping it to the actual physical location.
A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of splitting a server. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted. The practice of partitioning a single server so that it appears as multiple servers has seen a resurgence lately with the development of virtualization software and technologies for other architectures. Virtual private servers bridge the gap between shared web hosting services and dedicated hosting services, giving independence from other customers of the VPS service in software terms but at less cost than a physical dedicated server. There is an increasing focus on server and storage virtualization with little emphasis on network virtualization.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described herein above.